


An Independent Study

by BadOldWest



Category: The Winner's Trilogy - Marie Rutkoski
Genre: Art Student AU, College AU, F/M, Yes Arin is the naked model
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 23:12:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6491170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadOldWest/pseuds/BadOldWest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Art Student AU. Undeclared major Kestrel Trajan is trying to keep her artistic ambitions a secret from her business-major-or-GTFO father. So she sneaks a few art classes. Can she balance her double life while in Figure Drawing with nothing to hide behind when the hot model starts paying special attention to her? Could I have written than more like a FF.Net Hogwarts AU from 2007? Find out!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kestrel adjusted her messenger bag so it slumped against the seat she had taken. Near the window, which unfortunately was going to make it hard if she chickened out and ran out of the room. She pressed the phone closer to her ear, knowing it was rude to talk on her cell in a classroom, but Jess had wanted to get seats early so students trying to add didn’t steal them all. 

Jess smiled cheekily at her. 

“You have two weeks to drop, if you want.”

She waved her hand dismissively, trying to hear her father over the dull hum of people getting comfortable in the classroom. 

“About time to declare your major, isn’t it? Have you been on track with all that with your advisor?”

Kestrel almost spat out her coffee. And not because she’d confused it with her paintbrush water. That was earlier this morning and she’d double-checked this time. 

“Uh. Yeah. I mean I’m ready enough to go through the process. I’m just...you know, minors and stuff, still trying to figure out what I want to do. I’ve got time until I have to declare…” she added with false confidence. This phone call with her father could not end soon enough. 

“Yes, well, just make sure they know who they’re dealing with. So they really help you build a course list that fits your specific needs.”

_ Specific needs?  _ All she wanted was a spot in Psych 201. Not that he’d approve of that choice until she justified that it was easier to work with people if she understood how they worked. Or she could credit another class she wanted to take as another LAF, which she’d been doing every registration period since she started at Herran University. 

“Sure Dad.” She shifted the phone against her cheek, glancing at the clock. Class was about to start, so she couldn’t be that girl on her phone for much longer without getting kicked out. she shifted on her stool, grateful for the excuse to go, “I have to get going, love you.”

“We’ll talk later. Goodbye Kestrel. Remember to call your advisor this week.”

“Kaythanksbye,” she rushed out, easing open her bag and removing her sketchpad and pencils. 

Kestrel almost up-ended the easel in front of her in frustration. She was already getting strange looks from the other students around her. 

God, he was going to murder her. She was already entering Junior year undeclared, and her father was sniffing the blood in the water on that lie pretty quickly. 

_ Just exploring my options! _ She’d reply tensely. 

As though the options were not business major or GTFO. 

“You ready for naked boys?”

Kestrel flinched, because she certainly was not. 

“There’s going to be female models too,” she said coldly, trying not to let Jess make her flustered. She needed this class. She was good with watercolors, abstract painting, and a lot of other hands-on arts. But figure drawing was always her weakness. She had a habit of making things not how they were, but how she wanted them to be. 

Jess cast her eyes over her shoulder, then whispered, “Damn.”

Kestrel followed her eyeline. 

There was a guy in the corner of the room, arms folded. He had not taken a seat. 

_ Ooh. A rebel. _

She tried not to roll her eyes, because of course he was trying to be the hot bad boy in art class. So maybe he was, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was he was staring at her. 

And her pretty pink dress. And her starbucks. And her gold bracelet. 

She could feel that judgement radiating off of him. 

_ I can practically hear him calling me a basic white girl  _ she thought miserably. Shaking the thought from her head, she brightened as her professor entered the room. A composed, bespectacled man with brown skin and a quiet demeanor. He launched into the basics of the class, since it was a 200 level, clearly they all knew how to go about the first draft. They’d be starting that day with a few ten-minute poses. Yes, the models would be naked. Try not to get excited. 

She could feel the guy behind her still staring. She almost felt her skin peel, like his gaze was the sun or something. 

_ Sit down  _ she thought to the guy in the back of the room  _ it’s not like you have somewhere else to be. It’s rude.  _

“Now that that’s all out of the way, Arin, are you ready?”

“ _ Ready as I’ll ever be. _ ” 

She was the only one who heard him. From the back of the room. 

He strode over the platform in the middle of the room, shucked off his t-shirt, and unbuckled his belt. 

Kestrel’s stomach dropped. 

He wasn’t a student. He was the model. 

And he was standing, naked, five feet away from her.

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

“Oh my god.”

Jess had her hands pressed to each side of her temple, making a dizzy spin in place on the sidewalk outside the art building. Kestrel shifted nervously, trying to distance herself from the attention Jess was drawing to them.

She pretended to fan herself. “I am so glad I signed up for this class.”

_ I’m not _ Kestrel thought miserably. The entire block had been her tentatively trying to appreciate the subject’s body without feeling like she ogling too hard. She ended up with three half-decent sketches of his face, and when he had moved to completely turn away from her, one of his shoulders and back. She could not bring herself to colonize the rest of his form. She wasn’t ready. 

But Jess, while putting it more bluntly than she would have, did have a point. Arin was a well-formed man. Muscular and well-proportioned. She didn’t allow herself to let her eyes linger on him for too long, as though it was disrespectful. Not because of how he was naked, but because of why he was naked would not line up with why she was looking. If she let herself go all Magic Mike girl-crazy, it’d be a violation somehow. She was not treated to checking out all his naked glory; staring, biting her lip, fantasizing. She was treated to flickering glimpses of brown skin, messy hair, sharp eyes. 

“I mean seriously, he was so hot. The second pose, did you  **see** his  **ass** ?”

Jess’s voice cracked through the sidewalk connecting the building the the rest of campus. While it wasn’t like she was shouting it on the quad, the trees surrounding the fine arts building created a sense of seclusion that made her question even worse than if she had. The leaves on the trees seemed to tremble in the aftershocks. 

Kestrel flushed, tucking her books closer to her chest. 

“I think you should…”

There were footsteps behind her. A hand on her shoulder. 

“Excuse me.”

She spun around. 

And of course. He was standing right there. Arin was his name, wasn’t that what the professor said? 

She had been blocking the thin path where the hedges met the side of the building, where most people made a shortcut to the parking lot. And she was still standing in the way, staring at him. 

He had clearly heard enough, if not all, of what what Jess had said.

“I’m….” 

What was she? Sorry? For her friend, for her presence, for being in the class he was paid to be naked in? The words never came held back on her tongue. She merely stepped out of his way. 

He lingered, looking at the plenty of space she opened up for him to get by. She noticed he was not making eye contact with her. 

He turned to Jess.

“This class has a zero tolerance policy for sexual misconduct and harassment.”

His voice was clipped.

Jess rolled her eyes. “I didn’t grope you or anything. I was just having a private conversation about class with my friend. Don’t take it so seriously.”

“Jess…” Kestrel interjected, her tone clipped. Oh no. She was in stage-manager mode. Fix the problem. Solutions. Separate them. Pull the curtain. 

Jess’s eyes flashed defensively to her. Her friend was a sweet, outgoing girl who just happened to not take criticism very well. 

“How is what I said offensive? He’s the one who gets paid to be naked in front a room full of strangers. Why is it suddenly inappropriate for me to comment on it?”

“Jess, let’s just go get coffee.”

Arin watched this, his posture loose and passive. Anyone walking by would have thought Jess was flipping out over the barest of touches. But Kestrel watched his eyes. He was meaning to provoke, glad of her friend’s reaction. He gave none of that sense away, except for his blazing eyes. 

And he turned those eyes to her, shameless. Proud. Daring her to be the snippy little white princess along with her friend. 

“Jess,” Kestrel repeated, taking her arm. 

Kestrel’s phone exploded in a warning tone. Class had just ended and her father was calling her back. This could not be good.

“Can you save our usual table at the cafe? I need to take this.” 

Jess’s face softened, even though Arin was standing right there, it was like he was forgotten.

“Yeah, babe. You want a scone to drown your sorrows in?”

She stared down at the buzzing phone in her hand. “I’ll probably need it.”

Jess departed, glaring at Arin over her shoulder before prancing across the leaf-strewn paths to the campus coffee shop. 

Kestrel swore under her breath, slipping the phone into the cradle of her hand and resting it to her ear. 

“You know, I was just talking to a colleague who mentioned that you were registered for a disproportionate number of art classes this semester. We don’t want that to be a problem when you graduate.”

She bit back a groan. Weren’t they not supposed to give that information to parents without the child’s confirmation? Curse her father’s frequent donations, any information about her activities was fair game for most of the administration. She was trying her best to mumble her name unintelligibly to her professors, but it was hard to hide she was Kestrel Trajan while standing in the new Trajan School of Business.

Her father launched into another full-fledged attack on her need for more economics courses. She tried not sigh too heavily. 

She turned back to Arin, who didn’t seem to be leaving until she addressed him. 

He was still watching her. 

“What?” She mouthed at him, covering the speaker of her phone.

“So, what did you draw of me?”

Bile rose in her throat. After all that, Jess shooting off her mouth, his confrontation, her frantically trying to placate them both, he was hitting on her?

Indignantly, she ripped her sketchbook out of her bag, shoving it at him. 

“Freckles.” She spat out, not looking at edgy and confident with that admission as she’d wanted to. At least she’d proven him wrong; she wasn’t a basic suburban white girl trying to seem edgy with her naked art class. She cared about portraiture and shading and clean lines. 

That’s what was there. Freckles on cheekbones and noses and shoulders. On his body and on the page. 

He stared down at her sketchbook, and she could tell he did understand that now. 

Too late though, as she was trying to defend herself from her father’s steady belligerence. It wasn’t rage, it was aggressive logic. She felt very stupid from the way he talked to her. 

“I know dad, I’ll move some things around. Everything was full when I registered. Yeah, well, it happens.”

When she looked up, Arin was gone. 

That dick had taken her sketchpad. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The drop-slip was gripped in her sweaty hand.  _ So much for progress. _

As a means of negotiation, and for her fierce protection of her sculpture class and studio time, Kestrel was going to have to cut herself off from any more figure drawing classes. Having already started out on the wrong foot, she came to the unhappy compromise of dropping that in order to bulk up on those oh-so-important STEM courses her father was campaigning for. 

And so she wove through the darkened fine arts building at the last possible moment, minutes before office hours ended, because…

She didn’t want to.

Not for any frivolous reason. She was really rewarded by the setting. It was structured enough to make her feel like she was making progress, free-form enough to make her feel like she was creating. The professor seemed a little indifferent to being an inspirational teacher, but he seemed to give good feedback and made sure nobody burnt the place down, where so many other faculty members really rode their students. She appreciated how it would be the end of her week, the friday afternoon poses, meditative and calm. 

She neared the office after spending too long near the glass case of last year’s seniors sculpture work. 

Two people were talking inside the professor’s office. She almost turned on her heel at the excuse to drag it out another week. 

She flinched at the familiar voice. “Cheater.”

“Am not. You didn’t fill out your timesheets appropriately.”

“I’ll fill out- Oh, hey.” 

Arin swung open the door, exposing her to the other person in the room. 

“Just the girl we’ve been looking for.”

Light glinted over the professor’s eyes. She couldn’t read his expression. 

Arin showed me your work from the first class.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that’s what he stole my sketchbook for.”

“This is phenomenal work, Miss…?”

“Trajan,” Arin supplied. 

Kestrel shot him the dirtiest look she could. He seemed amused by it. 

“Well, I looking forward to working with your talent this semester. I’d actually be interested in you doing something a bit more like a profile, as you seem to get character down very well. You should be doing longer poses.”

He bit noisily into an apple. 

God, this was the worst possible start to a conversation about dropping the class. 

“Actually, that’s what I came here to speak to you about. I got a little overzealous with my registration, and I’m kind of enrolled in too many elective classes that conflict with my major,” this had all been rehearsed in the hallway, “and I’m going to have to drop.”

He clucked his tongue at her. “That’s too bad. We could use hands like yours in the fine arts department.”

She smiled; posed, sympathetic, “aw shucks” kind of smile. She felt like she looked like when Jess pretended not to have any cash on her around homeless people.

“Well our department is very flexible, maybe you could tack on an independent study for a credit or two. Just an hour sketching a week. The department pays models for whenever, just contract it.”

“I...I couldn’t ask for that…”

He pointed vaguely, mouth filled with apple. “Arin’s available.”

It was like a thread was pulled taut between her and Arin. Her heart shuddered to stop. It did not feel like this was a good idea. It felt like an awesome proposal, but an awful idea.

Arin’s expression was cool, blank, practised. He wasn’t giving her an out. 

She still asked for one. 

“I’m not comfortable with volunteering Arin for something that seems...intimate.”

She cringed at the word choice. 

The professor smiled, nodding towards Arin. “What do you think of being volunteered? Offer her your services.”

Kestrel felt something oily and unpleasant about the whole exchange. But Arin’s eyes were calm on her face, his temper even, as he said “I wouldn’t mind. It’s my job.”

The professor’s face cracked in a wide smile. A little too ready at the gate to feel genuine. 

“You presumably have an add/drop slip?”

Within mere seconds, he had her independent study forms listed on the add section and a list of instructions to get things settled with the registrar. This was also the one she’d been using for all of her academic arrangements, so if she elected to tear up the suggestion and leave it in the trash, she’d have to hunt down the same professors again. 

Kestrel politely accepted, making her excuses to leave. 

It felt a bit wrong to be getting exactly what she wanted when she had walked in. Something about it was too easy, and it felt cheap.

She exited the office quickly, surprised that Arin followed her outside. 

“You don’t have to do this.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. 

“We might as well try it. If you’re uncomfortable though, I can…”

She didn’t know what she could do, and the look in his eyes told her he wasn’t the one to start shouting out ideas for her. 

“I’m fine with it,” he said again, calmly convinced.

He really was beautiful. That’s what made this hard. It was so inappropriate for her to be attracted to him, to want to see more of his when she was in the advantaged position. It made her feel gross and leering. But he had the chance to back away. She’d offered him the out. 

Why didn’t he take it? Who would want this for himself?

“Okay. Good. I’ll um, grow up about this.”

She glanced down at Arin’s hands. She sketched them a little bit in the corners of her pages, her eye was continuously drawn to them during all of the poses. They were very expressive. 

They were shadowed with an ashy substance, especially blackened around the nails.

She grinned.

“Charcoal?” 

He knit his brow in confusion, and looked down at his hands. 

Something bitter and sharp twisted in his eyes. 

“No,” he said quietly, and what she assumed must have been very wrong, because he then left her alone in the dark hallway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been flipping out on tumblr about always-shirtless Arin and I hope this fic doesn't undermine all of that because I have a point to the nudity and at least I'm not lasciviously describing it. 
> 
> Please leave reviews though! I know this fandom is small but I like everyone to feel like we're on a friendly basis, and some direction for this unnecessarily complicated AU would do me some good. Thanks!!

**Author's Note:**

> Is this the week to start a bunch of new projects? Of course it is!
> 
> I came up with this idea like a year ago. One would think frothy art student AU is not the best for a book about the horrors of war and colonialism, but there you go.


End file.
